01/08/09, 03:04:04 UTC

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Hurricane Dean lashes Mexico's tourist strip

stuff.co.nz

Hurricane Dean has weakened further to a Category 1 storm after hitting Mexico's Caribbean coast, the US National Hurricane Centre has said.

When Dean made landfall earlier this morning (NZT), it was a Category 5 cyclone, the strongest possible on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The storm lashed Mexico's Caribbean coast with howling winds and driving rain that hit beach resorts where thousands of tourists huddled in shelters.

However Dean exhausted much of its ferocity on the Mexican coast, and was downgraded to a category 3 storm about midnight NZ time.

Earlier, seas churned as the storm, which has left a trail of destruction and killed 11 people so far on its rampage through the Caribbean, began to strike Mexico's "Mayan Riviera" hotel strip.

Tourists squeezed into a hotel serving as a shelter for 400 people in the Playa del Carmen resort, with as many as 12 people sharing some rooms.

"We could be two or three days without water or electricity," said Italian vacationer Emanuela Beriola, 41, who stockpiled tinned meat, energy drinks and cans of tuna fish.

Category 5 hurricanes - the strongest possible - are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans. The higher number of powerful storms in recent years has reinforced research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.

Out to sea, Dean was packing winds of around 256 km/h.

Some visitors were unfazed before the worst of the storm. "I am very calm. It's fun," said French tourist Sylvie Salei.

Troops and police patrolled the area Dean made landfall - in a marshy zone near Mexico's border with Belize - to enforce a curfew declared by the state government.

Store owners boarded up windows along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, a strip of beach resorts with white sands and turquoise seas that is yet to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Wilma, the strongest Atlantic storm recorded, wrecked Cancun and other beach resorts. It washed away whole beaches, killed seven people and caused $US2.6 billion ($NZ3.8 billion) in damages.

The sea around the tourist island of Cozumel, normally bustling with yachts, diving boats and cruise ships, was ominously free of vessels as the waves became choppy.

Mexico's state oil company closed and evacuated all of its 407 oil and gas wells in the Campeche Sound, meaning lost production of 2.65 million barrels of crude per day.

Heavy rain fell in Belize, a former British colony that is home to some 250,000 people and a famous barrier reef.

Belize's government encouraged people to move inland and long lines of cars formed the highways heading west toward higher ground in the capital of Belmopan and San Ignacio, a town close to the Guatemalan border.

"Absolutely this is one of the most dangerous and biggest hurricanes we have had so far," said Robert Leslie, cabinet secretary of the Belizean government.

Dean swiped Jamaica at the weekend, ripping the roofs off buildings and blocking roads with toppled trees and power poles. Police said two people were killed, bringing to eleven the death toll from Dean. Haiti was worst hit with four people dead there.

Poor local residents with badly built homes are often the worst hit by hurricanes in Mexico.

"Let's see if the house can stand it. If not, we'll go to the shelter," said Luisa Villafana, 27, an office cleaner who shares a thatched-roof home with eight other people near the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

 Printable Version  | published Aug 21, 2007